Kent Lundmark triumphs at EPT Barcelona

Monday, 29 November 2010

Kent Lundmark has served up the best performance by a Swede in Barcelona since Zlatan Ibrahimovic's match winning effort against Real Madid last year, to take the latest European Poker Tour event in the Catalan capital.

The 22-year-old has already had a decent 2010 with a runner up finish in the Nordic Master of Poker for $69,000 and a deep run at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for a further $66,000. His win in Barcelona puts him in a different league altogether though.

The Stockholm native went into heads up play even in chips with Spaniard Jesus Marquez Lizano but took the initiative after winning a big pot with top pair against Liazano's bottom pair and busted flush draw. After eighty minutes of two handed action Lundmark sealed the win. The chips went in the Swede holding AhQh. Lizano had live cards with KsJd but the board provided the home favourite no help. He was forced to settle for €525,000 for his runner up finish.

“It’s an amazing feeling,” said Lundmark, who pocketed €825,000 for the win. “This is one of the biggest tournaments you can win in poker. I’ve been running good all tournament, I was very lucky. In the heads-up, I just kept getting good cards. I always felt in control.”

In addition to the cash, the young Swede also earned a seat in the EPT Grand Final worth €10,000.

Tuesday is the deadline for all working Americans to have submitted their income tax returns to the federal government and Juicy Stakes and Intertops Poker are set to mark this annual occasion by holding a special freeroll competition featuring a $1,000 top prize.

“We run a lot of higher stakes tournaments for our more hard-core players,” said Intertops’ poker manager. “But since our network is generally pretty soft, we created this series to give less competitive players a shot at winning.”